Meeting of the Faculty Senate, University of Puget Sound, November 6, 2006.
Present: Bill Haltom, Ross Singleton, Barry Anton (Chair), Nancy Bristow, John Hanson,
David Sousa, Robin Foster, Terry Beck, Priti Joshi, Amy Ryken, Hans Ostrom (scribe of
the day).
Visitors: George Tomlin, Don Share, Wayne Rickoll, and, pinch-hitting for Kris
Bartanen, Alyce DeMarais, who leads the league with a .395 batting average.
The meeting opened at 4:37 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.
Anton asked whether there were any suggested corrections to the minutes of the previous
meeting. Ostrom, barely able to speak and to take minutes at the same time, said he
thought that the task force looking into scheduling-matters had been directed by the
Senate to draft some proposed principles by which administrators could construct a classschedule. Ostrom noted that such a draft of principles would, of course, go to the
Academic Standards Committee for its consideration before coming back to the Senate.
Anton asked Joshi to make this suggested correction to the minutes. Joshi acceded to the
request.
M/S/P: Approval of the minutes from the previous meeting, with the one
correction/addition.
Announcement: Anton announced that President Thomas and Mr. Beers will visit the
Senate at the next meeting, and that they will discuss the emerging capital-campaign.
There’s No Business Like Old Business
The topic: whether untenured members of the faculty and/or directors & deans should
serve on the Faculty Advancement Committee (FAC).
Sousa said he still recommended that untenured members of the faculty not serve on the
FAC, but that, owing in part to information distributed by Kris Bartanen, he had decided
the issue concerning deans & directors was too complicated to pursue at this time.
Therefore, he said, he would simplify the suggested revision to the By Laws, as follows:
Where the language, with regard to FAC membership, now reads “five faculty,” the
language will read “five tenured faculty.”
Sousa moved this change to the By Laws. Hanson seconded the motion.
Sousa reiterated his reasoning, expressed in the previous meeting: 1) Colleagues who
haven’t met standards should not be asked to apply such standards (for tenure); 2)
Participating on the FAC puts untenured colleagues in an extremely difficult political
situation.
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Singleton said that he largely agreed with Sousa, but that he had the following concern:
The university seems to be hiring more colleagues who are untenured but who have
considerable experience elsewhere and who are at advanced ranks (Associate and Full
Professor). Is it, then, correct to exclude such colleagues from the FAC?
Singleton offered an amendment to the motion: “five members of the faculty who
are not assistant professors [i.e., `junior faculty’].”
Joshi asked how many of such untenured senior colleagues there were.
Singleton: --An increasing number, and some of these colleagues have received tenure
elsewhere, and so they have indeed met certain standards.
Haltom expressed two concerns: 1) Procedural: It is not wise to change the By Laws in a
way that cuts out junior faculty from the process without letting the junior faculty know
that we are proposing such a change. He noted that representation of the junior faculty
on the Senate was not overly abundant. He suggested that the junior faculty be made
well and widely aware of the proposed change. 2) Concerning Vulnerability: The
Academic Vice President, he noted, serves on the FAC. He stressed that he has served
with Kris on the FAC and has no doubt about her integrity in that capacity; she does not,
he observed, “muscle” people. Therefore, his remarks were not personal. He argued that
procedures should be based on the office or the structure of governance, not on the
person. He observed that there are many opportunities even for the tenured to feel
pressured on the FAC because, with regard to human nature, one cannot expect to get rid
of the corrosive aspects of ambition. He observed that some tenured colleagues on the
FAC may worry about what the AVP could do to them (in the event of a disagreement)
even when the AVP would have no intention of doing anything to them. He admitted
that no particular suggestion flowed from these observations, but he reiterated that even
advanced colleagues, not just the untenured, are subject to political pressure, real and
imagined, on the FAC.
Bristow agreed with Haltom’s first point, noting that there are so few junior-faculty
present in the meeting today that we need to seek a greater range of junior-faculty input
on the issue.
Sousa reiterated his concern that deans & directors really aren’t faculty peers and that,
therefore, their serving on the FAC may remain problematic. He noted, however, that the
information Kris Bartanen had provided showed that there was great variety in the nature
of dean and director positions, so the issue was probably too complicated to address, at
least today.
Joshi observed that she doubted whether a substantial number of junior-faculty would
feel as if something were being taken away from them if they were to be prevented from
serving on the FAC. She noted that when she had been nominated to run for the FAC,
her response was, “ . . . not a snowball’s chance in Hell.” She also noted that, apparently,
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only one junior faculty member had served on the FAC as far back as anyone [including
Haltom] could remember.
Joshi went on to observe that UPS has a peculiar set of norms with regard to evaluation,
at least when these norms are viewed by those who teach or have taught elsewhere. For
example, first-year colleagues help to evaluate colleagues in tenure-cases, and no outside
letters are required (in tenure cases); such practices are rare at other colleges and
universities, she noted. Therefore, she argued, although new senior-level, untenured
colleagues may have experience elsewhere and may have met standards elsewhere, they
will still not have been acclimated to the UPS evaluation-system.
Foster observed that Sousa’s motion would reflect a deviation from an ethos of
inclusivity at the university.
Sousa agreed, but he observed that, in some cases, it may make sense to deviate from
general egalitarian principles. He agreed with Joshi that the aspects of the evaluation
process were weird and pointed to the example of junior-faculty members sitting in on
tenure-decisions.
Beck questioned the logic of not allowing the junior faculty to sit on the FAC because
they had not met the standards they were applying. He said the logic ran counter to
departmental policy across campus, policy that assumes the junior faculty can indeed
apply standards which, because of the stage-of-career, they have not been asked to meet.
Following this logic, he said, would lead us to a potentially absurd situation in which
only full professors could evaluate full professors. Beck agreed, however, with the
reasoning that the junior-faculty, because of political pressure, should not sit on the FAC.
Sousa, in response to Beck’s first point, argued that departmental guidelines and
standards are specialized, whereas FAC guidelines and standards are more general--are
university-wide and therefore not as closely tied to expertise in a certain field.
Foster observed that the process for assembling an FAC is selective and that it ostensibly
protects against a person who is too young being selected for the FAC.
Sousa observed that the combined election/selection process for the FAC is not a
particularly good mechanism for translating faculty-preferences into outcomes, given the
ways in which the number of options typically divides the vote.
Ostrom noted that Singleton’s motion for an amendment had never been seconded.
Bristow seconded it.
Ryken asked the senators to ponder the question, “What is expertise?” She observed that
expertise comes in all sorts of packages. She said she certainly understood the concerns
with regard to the junior-faculty’s feeling pressured when or if they sat on the FAC, but
she noted that, apparently, this had actually happened only once. Is this, she asked, a
problem that needs fixing? She said the evaluation-system at UPS did not seem
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particularly unusual to her, partly because of efforts for transparency but also because of
equal access for junior and senior faculty in the process, and she suggested that the
senators should trust the junior-faculty to protect themselves.
A voice-vote on Senator Singleton’s amendment was taken. The amendment was
defeated.
Several votes—by voice, by show of hand, by improvised combinations thereof—
were taken on the Sousa motion [excluding junior faculty from serving on the FAC].
After everything was appropriately and patiently sorted out by Chair Anton, the
motion passed, 6-4, with two abstentions, these belonging to Alyce DeMarais and
Barry Anton.
New Business
The Ad Hoc Committee on Professional Standards, composed of Senators Bristow,
Hanson (chair), and Sousa, gave its report, but not before Anton thanked them for their
hard work and diligence.
Hanson began the discussion.
1.
2.
3.
4.
He suggested that the report of the AHCPS be received by the Senate.
He suggested that the report be sent to the whole faculty.
He encouraged the Senate to approve the recommendations of the AHCPS.
He suggested that the Senate may also want to propose additional
recommendations at subsequent meetings.
Hanson moved to receive the report. Singleton seconded the motion.
A discussion ensued.
Hanson said the AHCPS opened the investigatory process to all faculty by means of
electronic mail and other modes of soliciting input. The committee also asked particular
individuals to speak with it.
Singleton asked whether participants knew that the meetings of the committee would be
private.
Hanson said that he wasn’t sure what “private” meant in this case but that participants
understood that confidentiality regarding substantive issues [in grievance-cases, for
example] would of course need to be upheld.
Singleton asked whether some people might not have approached the committee had they
not known for sure whether the meetings were private.
Hanson said he didn’t know.
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Hanson said the committee gathered a great deal of information, deliberated, and came up
with recommendations to address concerns. He said the committee decided not to
document testimony or necessarily to validate information. He described the thoughtprocess of the committee as forward-looking. The committee, he observed, did not
believe it was necessary to recount everything it heard. The committee thought the
recommendations would stand on their own merit. He said the committee chose not to
explain how it arrived at these recommendations. He asserted that not focusing on the
past was the best way to effect change.
Ostrom asked in what order the recommendations from the two ad hoc committees would
be taken up by the Senate. A report, with findings and recommendation, was presented to
the Senate in the previous academic-year, he noted, and recommendations from that
report were still pending.
Anton asked the Senate how it would like to proceed with regard to the order in which to
consider recommendations from two separate ad hoc committees.
Foster argued that it would make sense to take up the recommendations of the first ad hoc
committee first, in part because many of its recommendations were broad, whereas the
recommendations of the AHCPS were, by comparison, narrow. She also mentioned that
some of the recommendations of the AHCPS concerning the Professional Standards
Committee may dovetail with recommendations in the previous ad hoc committee’s
report.
Bristow asked Ostrom for clarification: was he referring to subsequent Senate-meetings,
as opposed to this day’s meeting? Ostrom said that yes, he was referring to subsequent
meetings, and that this meeting would, of course, continue to focus on the AHCPS report.
Foster complimented the AHCPS on its description, in the report, of the grievanceprocess.
Hanson noted that the committee had discovered a great deal of confusion on the part of
the faculty with regard to the grievance-process.
Bristow echoed Hanson’s observation and said that many colleagues seemed to confuse
hearing-boards with grievances and vice versa.
Don Share, a visitor, spoke. He noted that he has served several different times on the
PSC and in that capacity has probably heard more formal grievances than anyone
currently on the faculty. He urged the Senate to move quickly to adopt several of the
AHCPS’s recommendations, which he believed were long overdue. He said he
appreciated the AHCPS’s desire to have the PSC respond to the report, but he said that
the language in many of the recommendations may be just fine—meaning that some
recommendations may be in good enough condition, with regard to purpose and phrasing,
to go before the full faculty.
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Share observed that the report/recommendations could, in his opinion, be much stronger
in two particular areas:
1. He applauded the committee’s suggestions about recusal of PSC members in
certain situations, but he said he would recommend going even further. He
advised the Senate to craft a recommendation that would require the dean/AVP to
recuse himself or herself in every grievance-hearing because the dean/AVP
already sits on the FAC, because the dean himself/herself may often be the
originator or the conduit of a grievance, and because “having `the boss’ sit in on
grievance-hearings” is just not a good idea. He suggested that perhaps the Senate
could identify a replacement for the dean on grievance-hearings—perhaps
someone not already on the PSC. However, his main point, he stressed, was that
the dean should not sit in on any PSC grievance-hearings.
2. He applauded the committee’s desire and attempt to hold the PSC accountable in
the event the PSC violates the Faculty Code in a grievance-hearing or some other
process. With regard to the PSC’s having violated the Code in a grievancehearing (hypothetically), however, he asserted that sending a letter to the
President noting the violation is not a good idea. Share’s reasoning for this
assertion:
a. It is better that more than one person is the contact-point for reporting an alleged
PSC-Code-violation. It is better for some kind of collective body to receive
notice of and to respond to the alleged Code-violation.
b. In a grievance-process, the President receives the recommendation of the PSC. If
he or she were to receive a letter about a Code violation, he or she would then be
involved in the process twice. Such double-involvement may create a built-in
conflict of interest, he reasoned.
Share recommended two possible collective bodies that could receive notice of an
alleged PSC Code violation and that could deal with such an alleged violation:
1. The elected Chair of the Faculty Senate and perhaps an additional senator.
2. A panel composed of previous PSC chairs, to be selected by the full Senate or by
the elected Chair of the Faculty Senate.
Share concluded by asserting that rather strict time-limitations on the PSC’s rulings (in
grievances) was a very good idea, especially when a tenure-evaluation has been held up
because of a grievance.
Hanson said he appreciated Share’s suggestions, and he said that the ad hoc committee
did not necessarily believe all of the recommendations in the report to be the best
possible recommendations. He said that, in general, the ad hoc committee preferred a
minimalist approach that did not disrupt (for example) evaluation-processes too much,
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but he said that, in the case of recommending that a letter be sent to the President in the
event of an alleged PSC Code-violation, the committee may have favored minimalism
too much.
George Tomlin told senators that, as a current member of the PSC, he was “here to
listen.”
Wayne Rickoll told senators that he, too, was “here to learn.”
Alyce Demarais said she had no comments to make about the report.
Hanson moved receipt, by the Senate, of the ACHPS’s report, and Beck seconded.
M/S/P to receive the report of the ACHPS.
Hanson then moved (Beck seconded [?]) the following:
1. That Chair Barry Anton send the report to the whole faculty.
2. That Barry Anton, perhaps with the aid of one ad-hoc committee-member,
write a cover-letter to the faculty; such cover-letter shall include the
following items, phrased as Chair Anton wishes:
a. Anton shall encourage colleagues to contact senators with responses to the
report and/or comments/concerns about professional standards, the PSC,
grievance-procedures, hearing boards, and academic honesty [topics
investigated by the AHCPS].
b. Anton shall encourage colleagues to attend subsequent Senate meetings that
concern the report and the recommendations.
c. Anton shall remind the faculty that any recommendations [regarding
changes to the Code] the Senate approves must go to the full faculty for
approval.
d. Anton shall assure colleagues that if they speak to senators and desire the
conversation to be confidential, the conversations shall remain confidential.
Discussion:
Singleton asked Hanson whether accommodations might be made for faculty-members to
talk confidentially and privately with one or more of the members of the AHCPS.
Hanson suggested that, since the committee had finished its work, in the sense of having
reported today to the Senate, colleagues should not feel as if they need to speak only with
members of the AHCPS; colleagues may speak to any senator about these issues, he
suggested.
Anton noted that the Senate has the option of going into Executive Session if confidential
matters were to arise from conversations senators had with colleagues.
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Bristow asked whether the “default” assumption should be that responses and comments
from the faculty would not be confidential unless a colleague told a senator that the
conversation was to remain confidential.
Singleton said that some colleagues may feel constrained by the Code with regard to
confidential matters.
Sousa asked Singleton whether this concern was theoretical or actual.
Singleton responded that this [concern about confidentiality] was “an actual concern that
has been voiced.”
Foster asked whether provisions could be made for anonymous responses to the report.
Bristow did not favor this suggestion because an anonymous violation of confidentiality
[as defined by the Code] was nonetheless a violation.
Ostrom said he favored the provision for anonymity and said that colleagues could then
decide for themselves whether they wanted to violate confidentiality [as defined by the
Code].
Bristow said she was not convinced that it was appropriate for the Senate to set up a
process that allowed for such a practice [violating confidentiality, as defined by the
Code]. She also echoed Hanson’s earlier remark—that meeting with members of the
AHCPS, per se, was not necessary; meeting with and talking with any senator would be
fine.
M/S/P the multi-faceted “Hanson” motion, as described above.
Several visitors took flight.
More New Business!
Anton introduced the subject of regalia-at-graduation, saying that some concerns had
arisen about the proliferation of regalia, specifically the deployment of cords.
Ostrom moved the following: that the Senate recommend that all regalia except the
customary tassel [literalists among the Senate encouraged him to add “gown and mortarboard” to the motion, and Ostrom agreed to do so]. Motion: With regard to regalia,
only gown, mortar-board, and tassel shall be allowed at graduation [thereby
excluding cords].
Haltom seconded.
Discussion: Ostrom asserted that he had been annoyed by the fact that some graduating
English majors had felt they were being treated unfairly because English majors did not
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wear cords at graduation whereas other majors did. Obviously well into his Curmudgeon
Years, he added that, in his opinion, the business of cords was “silly and high-schoolish.”
Sousa indicated that, oddly enough, he was interested in the cord-issue--because for him
dovetailed with the issue of what we mean by a “thesis.” He said that, apparently,
students in International Political Economy wrote research papers in some senior-level
courses and these papers were deemed to be theses; the completion of such a thesis then
meant that a student could wear a cord at graduation. Past graduation bulletins have had
notices describing differences between graduates who had and had not completed a
“thesis.” Consequently, some students in P & G complained about this distinction and
wanted to be able to wear cords at graduation because these students had written similar
kinds of papers in similar kinds of courses.
Haltom suggested that the issue went beyond cords and theses and had crept into
“marketing,” whereby certain departments and programs used the graduation-program as
a venue for advertisement.
Sousa said he believed that issue [using the graduation-program for the “advertisement”
of departments and programs] had been addressed.
Haltom said this was good news to him, and he offered kudos to Marilyn Bailey. He
said that, like Ostrom, he had been annoyed by the fact that students in his department
[Politics and Government] suddenly seemed envious of majors who wore cords at
graduation. He also asserted the following: “That students would care about such matters
[as cords] is alarming.”
There was a brief lull; then Haltom said he had one more issue to raise.
Anton asked, with a slight note of weariness, “There’s more?”
Haltom said that “a cord-race” (the analogy being to an arms-race) may be underway. He
suggested that the university “keep it simple” and use the regimentation and uniformity
symbolized by gown, mortar-board, and tassel. He left the room, perhaps in search of
same.
In Haltom’s absence, Singleton noted that, with regard to the military analogy
(regimentation and uniformity), different branches, divisions, battalions, and so forth, of
the military had different regalia; therefore, cords at graduation may be appropriate.
“The more cords, the better,” he suggested.
Joshi thought the use of cords was just fine; “let the students have their cords”
summarized her position.
Bristow agreed with Joshi. She said that cords made graduation more colorful. She asked
Ostrom if he were opposed to the Hawaiian leis some students wore at graduation.
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Ostrom said he was not opposed to the wearing of leis at graduation because that was a
matter of personal choice and was not connected to departments or programs.
Singleton said that his department had been trying to develop a greater sense of
community among majors and that the use of cords was one element of this endeavor.
Ostrom, growing ever more curmudgeonly, said he believed organizing a party for majors
was a good enough way to develop a greater sense of community.
Ostrom, at long last taking the hint and realizing that the vast majority of senators were
Regaliaistas, withdrew his motion. The seconder, Haltom, agreed to the withdrawal
of the motion, and he implied that senators should watch the skies for increased, highly
evolved regalia from Politics & Government.
M/S/P adjournment. Anton seemed visibly relieved.
Respectfully submitted,
Hans Ostrom